The Massachusetts Council of the Magistrates

Abstract

M /ASSACHUSETTS has long been celebrated for having achieved, under Colony Charter, a practical independence of its home government for some sixty years. That Massachusetts introduced bold changes into its first constitution in defiance of provisions of Royal Charter of March 4, I628/29, is also very well known. But there are certain far-reaching constitutional changes, made by Colony of Massachusetts Bay on its own authority, which have not yet been remarked. I644, while government of Charles I was rendered helpless by civil war, Massachusetts took opportunity to re-arrange plan of its government, making conclusive some of these changes in its constitution. One of modifications which Colony established at that time was a Council of Magistrates, existence of which has been practically ignored by historians. Thus Osgood, whose history is nothing short of indispensable in a study of American colonial institutions, states that In Massachusetts, as in other corporate colonies, executive was lodged in governor and board of assistants. 1 But to speak of the executive power in early Massachusetts, is to see through